Abstract: Weighing 1,320 grams with both fans installed, Noctua's NH-D15 heatsink is big. It stands 162mm tall and has a footprint of 151x161mm so prospective buyers will want to measure their case clearances first. It's six heat pipes are soldered to the nickel plated copper base plate and aluminum cooling fins; overall the fit and finish is top notch.

There's a running joke on IFC's television show 'Portlandia,'
where a writer at Pitchfork magazine lays down the last few keystrokes
of some genre-defining review, then looks up at his co-workers and
utters these words; "Everything that can be said in music, has now
been said. I think...we're done. We can shut the site down. We did it!"

Testing heatsinks on Frostytech can sometimes feel like
this - like every word that can be said about a heatsink, has been said. The
running joke is, this happens every
season on 'Portlandia.'

Like music, heatsinks are in a constant and unyielding state of change. Every time we think we've seen it all,
something entirely new drops. This year, evolutionary thermal technologies like the Sandia Rotary Cooler are taking their final steps
towards commercialization, while vapour chambers rise from obscurity and
self-contained watercooling systems branch off into new directions. Even
plain old tower heatsinks like
the Noctua NH-D15 we're testing today, present us with refinements
and incremental design optimizations that shift performance boundaries.

We take for granted the behind-the-scenes work that goes
into lowering heatsink temperatures and noise levels, but we certainly notice when
CPU cooler prices go up and the volume of space
a heatsink occupies inside a PC chassis, balloons.

Gone are the days when enthusiasts could plunk $12 bucks down on a
lump of extruded aluminum and call it a day. If you're building a custom PC - be
it small form factor, gaming or a high end video editing box - you need to
spend a few minutes reading legitimate heatsink reviews before investing $60 or
$100 on a bad horse.

Noctua state: "Owners of Noctua CPU coolers can obtain
the Noctua NM-AM4 SecuFirm2 Mounting-Kit free of charge via this form. A proof of purchase (electronic
version, photo or scan of the invoice) of both a Noctua CPU cooler
and either a socket AM4 mainboard or socket AM4 CPU are required. There is a dedicated
upgrade kit (NM-AM4-UxS) available for NH-U14S, NH-U12S and NH-U9S"

For more details, heatsink exceptions and
a complete list of incompatible coolers, see here.

Weighing 1,320 grams with both fans installed,
Noctua's NH-D15 heatsink is big. It stands 162mm tall and has a
footprint of 151x161mm so prospective buyers will want to measure their case
clearances first. It's six heatpipes are soldered to the nickel plated
copper base plate and aluminum cooling fins; overall the fit and finish is top
notch.

The heatsink installs onto Intel socket LGA2011/115x
processors and AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2 CPUs. You'll note that Intel
LGA775/1366
platforms are no longer supported. Expect to find
Noctua's NH-D15 heatsink going for $99CDN at NCIX.com and ~$90USD at the usual
US computer stores. QuietPC.com have it for £65 GBP.

The Noctua NH-D15 heatsink
is bit larger than the previous NH-D14 model, but still constructed around a core of six
6mm diameter copper heatpipes, a hefty copper heat spreader and two separate aluminum fin
towers.

Where the
NH-D15 differs from the great unwashed is in the details; the heatpipes are
soldered to every single aluminum fin. Most heatsink manufacturers opt to
simply and inexpensively swage aluminum fins around the heatpipes,
however a soldered joint ensures lower thermal joint resistance in the present
and long-term
lifespan of the
cooler.

Two 140x150x25mm NF-A15 fans
ship with Noctua's NH-D15 heatsink, each one rotates at 1500RPM and drives upwards
of 140m3/h air according to the manufacturer's specs. Fan lifespan
is pegged at 150K hours MTBF, allowing the NH-D15 cooler to
be backed by a remarkable 6 year warranty.

Noctua's NF-A15 fans feature the usual blend of (alleged)
low noise refinements, ie. self-stabilising oil-pressure bearings, textured
impeller and fan-frame surfaces, integral anti-vibration pads on all eight
corners and sealed bearings. Each fan mounts to the heatsink with a pair of
simple wire fan clips that engage with the edge of the aluminum fin
tower. The wire clips have a low profile, so there's less chance they'll
short out capacitors on the back of a videocard.

Installation Hardware

Noctua's
NH-D15
heatsink is compatible with Intel socket LGA2011/115x and AMD socket AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2
processors. The CPU cooler ships with a
variety of brackets,
separated into several packages for AMD and Intel platforms. For each CPU socket,
the same spring-tensioned metal tab is used on the heatsink base, greatly
simplifying installation. Some platforms will require a backplate installed behind the motherboard
along with the top-side mounting hardware.

The multi-language manual makes installation straightforward. Fans
may need to be removed for the installation procedure, but this is relatively painless as
Noctua have designed the wire fan retention clips with hand holds. Included accessories are pictured below.

A
small syringe of thermal compound is included, along with in-line resistors which can be added
to reduce the speed of the fans or simplify wiring for boards with
only one nearby fan header. Four fan clips are supplied.

FrostyTech's Test Methodologies are
outlined in detail here if you care to know what equipment is used, and the parameters
under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic
characteristics, and of course its performance in the thermal tests!